Art Making from Life Experience
Art Making from Life Experience engages elders in creating visual artworks inspired by life experiences. Mediums include painting, printmaking, collage, and drawing. Using a studio session format, Art Making from Life Experience provides elders with an opportunity to explore their artistic skills and create final works of art. Elders from all artistic backgrounds are asked to write a reflective statement to accompany their artwork that tells the story behind their piece. At the end of the program, ESTA works with the host site to plan a culminating exhibition designed to share the work created by participants with the site’s community, family, friends, and the greater public. Culminating exhibitions are both large and small. In late 2008, ESTA hosted a culminating exhibition with a special opening night at the Whitney Museum of American Art followed by a six-week showing in early 2009 at Saint Peter’s Church in midtown Manhattan. The culmination was for a 2-year project working with 20 Manhattan-based senior centers that explored the theme, “a long way home.” Click here for a link to the photo gallery of the opening at the Whitney of A Long Way Home: Elder Artists in the Neighborhoods of New York.
